clean slate

Interesting idea that explains how to build awesome secure and portable system using Linux. From the article:

I designed this system with both security and portability in mind. My system uses a Linux kernel and the entire thing, applications, personal data, etc, takes up 1GB of space. It is split up into two parts, the operating system, and my personal data. The operating system is a 700MB live-CD, GRML, that generates a completely fresh install every single time I boot up the computer. Doing this means that if my system is ever hacked into, a simple restart of my computer fixes the problem. This also means that any configuration changes made or private information stored by any application, restarting reverts everything to a clean slate.

The personal data is encrypted using an AES-256 algorithm. The password I type in actually unlocks a special encrypted file which unlocks the real encryption information, meaning that my actual password is never stored in RAM (more specifically, DRAM). To prevent highly sensitive information from being discovered by remote hackers, which this layer of encryption would not protect against, an extra layer of encryption using either GPG or AES-256 provides two layers of encryption for highly sensitive data.